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Overview

This remarkably illuminating portrait of Tennessee Williams lifts the veil on the heart and soul of his artistic inspiration: the unspoken collaboration between playwright and actor.

At a low moment in Williams’s life, he summoned to New Orleans a young twenty-year-old writer, James Grissom, who had written him a letter asking for advice. After a long, intense conversation, Williams sent Grissom on a journey on his behalf to find out if he or his work had mattered to those who had so deeply mattered to him. Among the more than seventy women and men with whom Grissom talked were giants of American theater and film: Lillian Gish, (“the escort who brought me to Blanche”), Jessica Tandy (the original Blanche DuBois on Broadway), Eva Le Gallienne (“She was a stone against which I could rub my talent and feel that it became sharper”), Maureen Stapleton, Julie Harris, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, John Gielgud, and many more. Follies of God provides dazzling insight into how Williams conjured the dramatic characters and plays that so transformed American theater.

Product Details

About the Author

JAMES GRISSOM studied at Louisiana State University and the University of Pennsylvania. He has written for HBO, Showtime, CBS, and NBC. He lives in New York.

Jamesgrissom.blogspot.com

Read an Excerpt

"Perhaps you can be of some help to me.”

These were the first words Tennessee Williams spoke to me in that initial phone call to my parents’ home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was September of 1982, a fact I noted in a small blue book. The book was new and had been purchased for an upcoming test in World History that I would not be taking because Tennessee invited me to lunch in New Orleans, and I accepted.

I know that pleasantries were exchanged, and he laughed a lot—a deep, guttural, silly theatrical laugh—but the first quotation attributable to Tennessee Williams to me was the one I wrote in my small blue book.

Perhaps you can be of some help to me.

How could I be of help to Tennessee Williams? How, when in fact I had written to him, several months before, seeking his help? From a battered paperback copy of Who’s Who in the American Theatre, I had found the address of his agent (Audrey Wood, c/o International Famous Agency, 1301 Avenue of the Americas), and had written a letter—lengthy and containing a photograph, and, I’m thankful, lost to us forever—asking for his advice on a writing career. I wrote that his work had meant the most to me; that I was considering a career in the theater. I also enclosed two short stories, both written for a class taken at Louisiana State University. It was a time I recall as happy: I was writing, and exploiting the reserves of the school’s library and its liberal sharing policy with other schools. I was poring over books and papers that related to Tennessee and other writers I admired.

Tennessee (he told me, by the end of that first phone call, to call him Tenn) was in a horrible “knot of time.” He asked me to imagine a knot of time, but time for me at that point was something from which I was seeking favors, something I was approaching. I did not feel a part of time yet, which can be somewhat attributable to growing up and living in Baton Rouge, a city detached from time, thought, or curiosity. Tenn acknowledged with a laugh that Baton Rouge was a city encased in gelatin.

Tenn, however, could see and feel a literal knot of time and people and places encircling him, choking him, pursuing him. While he told me that he could no longer dream, due to age, a lack of flexibility both glandular and creative, and the “monumental accretion of toxins self-administered,” he was, comically, fully equipped to endure nightmares. His most frequent nightmare, one he had endured the night before he chose to call me, consisted of his slow, painful death by means of a massive knot, bearing the image of an enormous boa constrictor as well as an “artistic representation of a penis,” encircling him and squeezing him into darkness and death. The scales of this boa were faces of people and covers of books and posters of plays (both his and others’), travel brochures of trips planned, taken, aborted. The faces of the people and the blurbs on the books and the posters all posed the same question: Where have you been?

This time knot was for Tenn a threat, an indictment, and a motivator, and he took it as a primarily positive occurrence. “This thing, this horror,” he told me, “may very well allow me to write at my previous level of power, and it appears to be telling me to plunge into my memories, to plunder them. And those that are most vivid to me are in Louisiana.”

Tenn believed that writers, all artists, had several homes. There was the biological place of birth; the home in which one grew up, bore witness, fell apart. There was also the place where the “epiphanies” began—a school, a church, perhaps a bed. Rockets were launched and an identity began to be set. There was the physical location where a writer sat each day and scribbled and hunted and pecked and dreamed and drank and cursed his way into a story or a play or a novel. Most importantly, however, there was the emotional, invisible, self-invented place where work began—what Tenn called his “mental theater,” a cerebral proscenium stage upon which his characters walked and stumbled and remained locked forever in his memory, ready, he felt, to be called into action and help him again.

“I’ve got to get home.”

When Tennessee Williams was young, when he could dream and felt that time was a destination awaiting his arrival, he would repair to this mental theater, a safe place that operated under his management, where he could close his eyes and open the stage curtains and be not only home, but working.

If you’re a writer, you write. If you don’t, you’re dead. You have no home, no reason to be offered a seat at any table, and no reason to live.

No play written by Tennessee Williams, however, got its bearings until a fog rolled across the boards, from which a female form emerged.

“I do not know why this is,” Tenn confessed to me, “but there is a premonitory moment before a woman, an important, powerful woman, enters my subconscious, and this moment is announced by the arrival of fog. Perhaps it is some detritus of my brain belching forth both waste and a woman. I do not know, but it comes with a smell, and it is the crisp, pungent smell of radiators hissing and clanking and rattling in rooms in New Orleans and St. Louis and New York. Rooms in which I wrote and dreamed and starved and fucked and cried and read and prayed, and perhaps all that action and all that steam creates both this fog and this woman.

“I have not seen the fog in years.”

Tenn’s primary activity, he told me, was “faking the fog.” When he closed his eyes and summoned his mental theater, he could see the scuffed boards of the stage, the frayed, slow-moving curtains, smell the dust, and feel the excitement of drama forthcoming.

“When I was young,” Tenn told me, “I never sought out a woman, a character. She came to me. She had a story to tell, urgently, violently, fervently. I listened and I identified, and I became her most ardent supporter and witness. I cannot get a witness for me and I cannot be a witness for anyone! I cannot find a woman who will speak to me on my stage.”

So Tenn sought the women elsewhere, searched for fog in movie theaters, on television screens, and in the pages of magazines, in stacks of photographs. He failed to find fog in literature, because, he explained, “I am a very visual person. I need to have the shape and movement and intent of a woman before me.”

In his homes, in hotel rooms, in lodges and athletic clubs and as a guest of others, Tenn would pull out his typewriter or his pad of paper (which he called the “pale judgment” awaiting his ministrations), move close to a television set, and wait for a woman to speak to him. With friends like Maria St. Just and Jane Smith, whose love for and patience with him were boundless, he would sit in movie theaters for up to three consecutive showings, because a “wisp” of fog was emanating from the screen.

“I have not seen the fog in years,” Tenn repeated. “But your letter made me believe it still existed.”

Writing early in the morning or deep into the night, Tenn kept his television set on, the volume set to low, a radio or a phonograph playing the music of people who had led him to fog-enshrouded stages in the past. An image would come across the screen and catch his eye, the volume would be raised, and a voice would speak to him. Tenn had notes and diagrams and plot outlines scrawled on envelopes, napkins, hotel stationery, menus from restaurants and diners and airport lounges. Once, he delicately constructed a plot outline on a paper tablecloth, which the waiter neatly folded and presented to him along with the check.

He consulted psychics, tarot-card readers, tea-leaf diviners. He placed himself in tubs of warm water and tried to experience rebirth, so that he could emerge from his liquid prison young and alert and full of creative and glandular flexibility, free forever of the impending time knot.

Time and the ever-present pale judgment haunted him, jeered at him, reproached him. In the home of a friend, a fellow writer, he once walked over to a desk holding a ream of white paper and violently pushed it to the floor, then shoved it from view behind a desk. “I will have none of that from you!” he admonished the pile of paper, and went on with his visit.

Where have you been? the scales of the time knot asked him.

“Well, where the hell have you been?” Tenn once yelled out. “I was very loyal to my women, to my plays, to the construct of words. Where are they? Oh, they’re all on tour, baby, and I’m here with silence and clean air and a condemned theater. My heart and eyes are failing, but those gals are doing fine.” In Tennessee’s mind, Amanda and Blanche and Alma and Serafina and the Princess were errant daughters, each of whom who had been carefully listened to and coddled and husbanded by him, their “queer Lear,” and were now on stages telling their stories—the stories that had come to him in the fog—and he was off on his heath, yelling and whining and drinking and fighting off the time knot.

“Sometimes,” he told me during that first phone call, “I think the fog has been replaced by something else. I feel that there is a wind tunnel inside of my head, and inside my head, within my very brain, there are leaves flying about, and each leaf is an idea.”

When I finally met Tenn, he placed two fingers on his forehead, as if pushing against the pressure within, and he told me that the nights were spent scurrying after these leaves, trying to catch and collect them and find some meaning and comfort in them. He had also come to believe that the specks in his eyes, darting and floating, were reflections of these leaves moving across his brain, and if he could only marshal them, calm them down, and make the many dots one whole entity, he would have a character, a play, a woman, an idea.

“I am incapable of containing it,” he told me, “this mulch, this confetti, until I can find some form in which to place it. A shadow box of the cerebellum; a case of curiosities plucked from my subconscious; a brilliantly white page framed in gold that I can approach and admire for its order and cleanness and say to it, in front of it, ‘Yes, I have something to add.’ ”

Because he believed that the spots in his eyes, the floaters in his vitreous humor, were actually reflections of his cerebral leaf storm, Tenn took to staring into white tablecloths, looking upon blank white walls, and facing the sky, blinking and rolling his eyes, hoping to focus and find a connection.

“I’ve heard of connecting the dots,” he laughed, “but this is ridiculous.

“I try to approach the whiteness of the page, the pale judgment, as if I were a neophyte priest, and the paper is the host,” Tenn confessed to me. “I approach it gingerly and ask it to be patient. I see upon it the darting leaves in my brain, and I pray they will alight on the page and have some meaning. Or I touch it gently, a frightened queer faced with his first female breast, a nipple that seeks attention and ministration. ‘Forgive me,’ I say to it, ‘I don’t know my way around these parts.’

“I start with anything—one lone sentence—and I ask the leaves, I ask the page, for the next line, the next phrase.”

Sentence after sentence would follow, and Tenn would write them down, fervently, eagerly. Later, once we had met, once he had decided to trust me, I would write them down for him, and the bits of papers, the pages yanked from journals, and the old bills and envelopes—all littered with words—would pile up.

“I think we can help each other,” Tenn told me in that first phone call.

Editorial Reviews

“A portrait of Tennessee Williams that is richer, more enthralling and, yes, stranger, than any heretofore. . . . This is an extraordinary work. Not only for those who love theater, but also for those who would seek an understanding of the mind of the artist.” —New York Journal of Books

“Amazing and quite wonderful. . . . A unique and stirring examination of the profound effect of numerous talented actresses on Williams’ memorable work. . . . Grissom’s book is among the most surprising and provocative journeys into the soul of a writer.” —Peter Bogdanovich

“Grissom magically captures the vein and even voice of Tennessee in this beautifully written book about the actresses in his plays. Would that I had been one of them! There is no greater American playwright and Follies of God reveals why.” —Jane Alexander

“There have been plenty of books written about Williams over the past three decades, but few weave so many voices into an original and compelling portrait. Grissom honors the life and achievement of his doomed correspondent.” —Kirkus Reviews“A unique personal blend of road trip and literary history. . . . Philosophical, pragmatic, funny, and devastating. . . . Grissom has succeeded in creating a kaleidoscope meditation on the people who entered Williams’ imagination—‘the fog’—to become his signature characters.” —Publishers Weekly

“Imagine: a great playwright nearing the end of a troubled life charges a young writer with the quixotic task of tracking down the playwright’s favorite actresses and finding out if he mattered to them. It sounds the stuff of fantasy. But young James Grissom took up Tennessee Williams’ request and decades later has produced the result of that quest in an original, hypnotic, suigeneris, bound-to-be-controversial document that becomes the history of his education as well as the illumination of ours. Thank you, James Grissom, for honoring the promise.” —John Guare, author of The House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation

“Grissom had amazing access to Tennessee Williams—and to the great actresses who starred in his plays. His revelations about these remarkable talents coping with the passage of time are moving and often shocking in their truths. A dazzling piece of writing.” —Lee Grant

“Always thoughtful, sometimes stunning, I see Follies of God as a kaleidoscope for viewing Tennessee Williams, and his time and place in American theater. A little turn, a new surprise, another view forms itself. There’s nothing like it.” —Lois Smith

“Grissom’s electrifying and wonderfully readable book is the real thing. He has caught the voice, the man, the artist, exactly as I remember him. . . . Few people have captured so well Tennessee’s strange mixture of fear and admiration for women, his profound understanding (rare among men) of what drives them, their dominating presence in all his work, and his miraculous ability to work the magic of their strengths and weaknesses into some of the most powerful roles in the American theater.” —Michael Korda, author of Clouds of Glory

“Grissom’s book is peerless . . . in both what it says about the creative sources of America’s greatest playwright and in the way that it says it. . . . A magisterial summing up of a tormented soul for whom salvation was to be found only through language. . . . Reveals Williams to us fully as artist and human being—a flawed, fearful, self-destructive, achingly vulnerable, gallant, forever questing pilgrim: a genius and a visionary who tragically could never seem to take the measure of his own unparalleled gifts. This is an unexpected masterpiece.” —Foster Hirsch, author of Otto Preminger and The Dark Side of the Screen

From the Publisher

11/24/2014“Be my witness.” This was Tennessee Williams’s unexpected response to Grissom, who had written to the playwright looking for advice as a college-aged aspiring writer from Baton Rouge in 1982. As recorded in this uniquely personal blend of road trip and literary history, Grissom proceeded to spend several days in New Orleans with the great writer, recording the older man’s reminiscences in notebooks. Desperate to know that he still mattered, Williams made Grissom swear to seek out and talk to the women who had most shaped his work and life. In 1988, years after Williams’s death, Grissom began to seek out these names and make good on his promise. The cast is a memorable one: earthy Maureen Stapleton; delicate but determined Jessica Tandy; the two Kims, Hunter and Stanley; and even the inimitable Katherine Hepburn. In a series of conversations by turns philosophical, pragmatic, funny, and devastating, all discuss their lives, craft, and the art of surviving. The narrative can be meandering, and the language gauzy (perhaps not surprisingly, considering its subject), but Grissom has succeeded in creating a kaleidoscopic meditation on the people that entered Williams’s imagination—“the fog”—to become his signature characters. 48 color photos. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2015In 1982, novice writer Grissom wrote an unsolicited letter to Tennessee Williams (1911–83) asking for advice on a literary career. Williams was at a bad time in his life then: he felt that his muse had abandoned him. He invited Grissom to lunch in New Orleans. For the next five days, Grissom was Williams's Boswell, jotting down the Great Man's musings as though all pure gold, though often they were just self-indulgence. Williams laid out a request: he asked Grissom to interview the women Williams called collectively "the follies of God"—the women who'd helped him see through the "fog" out of which his greatest characters had emerged. Here is a memoir of a great playwright seen through the reflecting glasses of actresses and directors who worked with him. The prose is too often gushy, hyperbolic. Some interviews are compelling, others are vapid. But the best make memorable reading—Eva Le Gallienne on Williams's waste of talents, a look into the strange mind of Lillian Gish, Katharine Hepburn's take on Williams, Williams's rivalry with fellow playwright William Inge. There's dross in this book but there are gems, too. VERDICT This memoir won't replace John Lahr's Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (2014), but it provides new and valuable insights into the playwright's psyche and life.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Library Journal

★ 2014-11-29One of America's greatest playwrights as seen by himself and his many muses.When Grissom wrote Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) in the early 1980s seeking advice on a literary career, he could hardly have expected the response he received. Williams not only invited Grissom for an extended visit to Baton Rouge, but he quickly made him his walking companion and amanuensis, urging Grissom to take notes as Williams talked at length about his life, plays and quasi-religious notions of art. He also had a plan: to have Grissom visit all the actresses who had mattered to Williams and ask if he mattered to them. For the playwright, it was a roundabout way of getting his groove back; he had become a decrepit, alcoholic joke to his critics, and women had always been his salvation. Also, time was running out—and would stop completely for Williams not long after Grissom left his company. Reluctantly, Grissom pressed forward over the years ahead, seeking out the great ladies of the American theater for lengthy, intimate and revealing interviews, matching their thoughts on Williams with Williams' thoughts on them. "They say God is in the details," Williams told Grissom, "and these particular women are those details." Whether they were steadfast pals (Maureen Stapleton), committed individualists (Marian Seldes and Lois Smith), or became troubled (Barbara Baxley), tormented (Kim Stanley) and bitter (Jo Van Fleet) actresses with blighted careers, they defined their roles for Williams, revealing aspects of the roles he hadn't considered. Geraldine Page is just one example: "She made me a better writer and she made my plays better plays." There have been plenty of books written about Williams over the past three decades, but few weave so many voices into an original and compelling portrait. Grissom honors the life and achievement of his doomed correspondent.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog 5 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
8 reviews.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

A deeply personal and devastating portrait of Tennessee Williams.

chrisbaranski

More than 1 year ago

This is a brilliantly, beautifully written book, and I find myself returning to it over and over again, for insight and inspiration. I don't think you need to be a theater artist to love this book, although it helps. Such glorious detail, and the finest, sharpest portrait of Tennessee Williams I have ever read, and I've been present for most.

alexandrabritolives

More than 1 year ago

I loved this book. Tennessee Williams is my favorite writer, and I now know so much more about him from reading this book. The profiles of the women are so illuminating. The best book I have ever read on the process of a writer. James Grissom was a terrific witness to Tennessee Williams.

CecilyStrong

More than 1 year ago

One of the most moving books I have ever read about a writer, and also about the women who work with writers on plays. I was so inspired by this book.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I loved this book. It is not a typical biography, but a very personal book in which Tennessee Williams discussed his inspirations, and those who inspired Tennessee Williams talk about him. It is also about a young writer growing up with an incredible assignment to honor an older man who needed his help and to give voice to some of our greatest actress of the theatre. A must for lovers of theater and literature, and maybe everyone who wants to live a fuller life.

BrianofConnecticut

More than 1 year ago

The most revealing book yet on Tennessee Williams--and artists in general. While the book is sad as we learn that Williams felt he could no longer write, his lessons to James Grissom--and the reader--fill one with hope and gratitude. I loved this book.

BookWoman3

More than 1 year ago

I bought and read this book expecting a biography of Tennessee Williams, but it is so much more, and so devastating and wonderful. This is a book unlike any other I have read--it is a biography of Williams and several of the women who mattered most to him, and an autobiography of the writer. I was moved and I was shocked and I felt better about literature and the theater and life in general. Hard to peg, this book is terribly rewarding.

MsHall_NYC2

More than 1 year ago

I was unprepared by how moved I would be by this books, which is a....what? Biography? A little. A memoir? Somewhat. A vast portrait of the American theater in the twentieth century and the people who created it? Yes. A lovely, powerful book about what it means to create, to live, and to matter.

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